BERKELEY – In a rematch of a February battle between the California women's tennis team and Pepperdine in Malibu, the Golden Bears defeated the 20th-ranked Waves 5-2 on Thursday at the Hellman Tennis Complex. Senior Jessica Alsola clinched the Bears' win when she bested 59th-ranked Anastsiia Grechkina in a three-setter at court-two singles.
 
Cal improved to 3-4 with the nonconference result. The Waves – who beat Cal 5-2 in February – fell to 5-8.
 
The Bears earned a doubles win on court three, where the pair of Berta Passola Folch and Naomi Xu topped Duru Soke and Sebastianna Scilipoti 6-4. But Pepperdine won on court one and clinched the doubles point on court two, where Cal's Lan Mi and Greta Greco Lucchina fell to Grechkina and Alexia Harmon 6-4.
 
Needing to win four times in singles to capture the overall match, the Bears reeled off three consecutive wins beginning with 40th-ranked Mao Mushika's 6-3, 6-1 victory over 13th-ranked Savannah Broadus on court one to tie the contest 1-1. Mi – ranked 86th – followed with a 6-1, 7-6(4) win over 102nd-ranked Vivian Yang on court three and then Greco Lucchina, ranked 110th, knocked off Scilipoti 7-6(3), 6-3 on court four to give the Bears a 3-1 advantage.
 
Still leading 3-2 after a Pepperdine win, Cal got its clincher from Alsola on court two, where the senior ousted Grechkina 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-2 to hand the Bears a 4-2 lead. The match wrapped up on court five, where Passola Folch led Harmon 6-4, 5-7, 4-2 when the Wave retired and Cal secured its 5-2 win.
 
"Playing on our home courts definitely made a big difference," said Alsola, who beat Yang in the earlier meeting with Pepperdine. "We just have a lot of confidence here. I really believe in our team. We fought super hard, and we did so well."

"It's always going to be a good match when we compete with Pepperdine, and that's why we play them home and away," Cal head coach Amanda Augustus said. "We're always going to have high-quality matches. The matchups were a little bit different this time, but I was pleased. We didn't get the doubles point today, but we looked at some different pairings again and I don't think we're quite there yet. As in the last match, we really stepped it up in singles and had a great clinch by our senior veteran Jessica and had another good close out from Lan, another senior. That's another big singles win for Mao, and we won five of the six singles.
 
"We have two more matches to go this week, but this is a big top-20 win that we've needed. We're going to try to continue to build on this the next couple of days."
 
The Bears next host Boston College in their ACC opener Friday at noon and then host No. 56 Syracuse in another conference clash on Saturday at noon at the Hellman Tennis Complex.
 
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